Rosemary Rogers
explains the importance of reviews

Such reviews are here to stay and are a strategic element in
Google’s organic and sponsored listings. Your organisation cannot therefore
afford to ignore customers’ growing reliance on crowd-sourced feedback.

It is worth taking care to ensure that only validated
clients can leave reviews; some larger review-led product websites have run
into trouble by not verifying the user’s identity beforehand. More rigorous
sites include Trustpilot, feefo and reallymoving.com; some of them charge
a fee for acting on your behalf.

Table 1: Comparative ratings for home-moving services

Service

Average out of five
stars

Surveyors

4.75

Removals

4.72

Conveyancers

4.47

Is it worth the cost?

Yes: the best surveyors know they need the best reputation.

Potential clients will search for reviews of your service
regardless of whether or not you have a formal system in place. Without such a
system, Google or Bing search results will include random reviews or even
details of your competitors, meaning that you have less control of your own
reputation.

Once a customer has found your firm online, they can use
reviews as well as price to select the appropriate service for their needs.
Looking at reviews helps to gain their trust, and you should not underestimate
the power of crowd-sourced reviews: an
article in the Financial Times states that no fewer than 90% of consumers
trust peer recommendations online.

Although home-moving service reallymoving.com does not always know
which of its leads are converted into sales, analysis of those of which it is
aware show that most people do not choose the lowest-priced quote.

Strong reviews are a vital way to prove service quality.

Bad reviews

What happens when a bad review creeps through? It is
difficult to regain trust once it is lost. Because customers are more likely to
leave a bad review after unsatisfactory service than to comment favourably on good
service, it is vital to foster their happiness at every opportunity. Send a
review link to all your customers and remind them how important feedback is to
your business.

Top tips

Remember that a great service sells itself.

Follow up client reviews; either ask your lead
generator to send a link or do so yourself.

Never leave a bad review unanswered or the
reviewer always has the last word.

Be authoritative in your responses.

Include links to your reviews as a footer in
your emails or on your website and share them regularly on social media.

If you have a system that allows you to respond, you are
demonstrating that you are serious about customer service and can explain any
confusion or extenuating circumstances that may have led to questionable
feedback. A surveyor at reallymoving.com
received a very unfavourable review and was most unhappy that it was published.
He wrote a considered response, in which he said he really did not feel he
could have done any more for his customer.

The reaction was astounding; sympathy was expressed by new
and existing clients alike. The surveyor’s heartfelt response demonstrated a
passion for his work, which served to increase his client conversion rate. This
corroborates statistics from social commerce
company Reevoo, whose research suggests that bad reviews can nevertheless
be good for business.

Its survey showed that 68% of consumers trusted reviews more
when they saw both good and bad scores, while 30% suspected censorship or
fabricated comments when they did not see anything negative. Additionally,
those who make a point of reading bad reviews are 67% more likely to take up
services than the average consumer.

It takes time

Gathering reviews does not happen overnight and requires
some effort on your part.

Ensure that you record the source of the referral; some lead
generators automatically send out feedback links, or you may need to send the
client a link directly to your reviews provider. Always keep up to date, and
ensure that reviews are consistent.

Finally, how do surveyors compare to other moving services? Reallymoving.com has analysed the
thousands of comments it has collected over the past 12 months and the results
show surveyors narrowly take the lead over other professions.